Dangerous alliance between church and state

The Russian Orthodox Church has seen a rise in popularity over the last decade. Source: AFP/East News

The Russian Orthodox Church openly declared a crusade against multiculturalism, tolerance and other so-called Western values.

Russia officially celebrated Paratroopers Day on Friday. For
more than 1.5 million men who serve or served as paratroopers, the day is a
holiday, moreover one that is totally different than every other military
holiday. On this day, paratrooper veterans have carte blanche to do strange
things, which include getting drunk in the morning, fighting, and ritually
bathing in the city fountains. On this day in provincial cities, careful
mothers tend to lock their teenage daughters inside — and for good reason. Even
Wikipedia warns that "the festivities are accompanied by fights, pogroms
and public disorder."

But this year Paratroopers Day had a new twist. On all the
billboards and posters in Moscow, the holiday had a dual title: "Paratroopers
Day — ­Elijah's Day." The Orthodox Church does, in fact, commemorate the
Prophet Elijah on August 2. But it's hard to understand what the ascetic hermit
Elijah — aka "the first virgin of the Old Testament," who certainly
never jumped out of a plane in a parachute — has in common with paratroopers
who, by definition, aren't what you'd call pacifists.

Nevertheless, this isn't the first attempt of the Russian
Orthodox Church to interfere in the traditions of public and military holidays.
Not long ago, the authorities in Voronezh region officially prohibited
celebration of the ancient Slavic holiday of Ivan Kupala. A few days ago, the
church pressured the Navy to drop several traditions from Navy Day. In the
past, actors played Neptune, mermaids and other creatures who, in the words of
an anonymous representative of the Navy
"were not on Noah's Ark during the Flood," as Interfax reported.

Declaring Neptune a persona non grata in the Navy may be
comical, but it is indicative of the recent creep of clericalism into cultural
and public life in Russia. Groups of aggressive Orthodox activists and Cossacks
regularly attack art exhibitions showing "blasphemous" paintings and
demand that theatrical performances be banned.

The Orthodox church is attacking science as well as culture.
In June, the opening of a theology department at the Moscow Engineering and
Physics Institute provoked good-natured protest from scientists. When a Proton
rocket failed to launch properly on July 2, bloggers joked: "They cancelled
physics and introduced theology. The missile hit the heavenly bodies and fell
from the sky."

An entire school of pseudo-scientists have appeared,
regularly bombarding the mass media with the sensational results of their
"scientific research." For example, they have proven that reciting
the Lord's prayer over a glass of water while making the sign of the cross
"lowers the amount of harmful bacteria by 7, 10, 100 and even 1000
times."

Even more dangerous is the direct interference of the church
in politics. The hierarchy of the Orthodox church openly declared a crusade
against multiculturalism, tolerance and other Western values. It's no secret
that the recent law limiting the rights of homosexuals was passed after strong
lobbying by the church. In July, at the Moscow International Festival in Defence
of Family Values, the attendees discussed measures to legislatively
"safeguard children from the expansion of aggressive feminism, gender
ideology and homosexuality," as well as to ban abortion.

One of the main speakers at the festival was Archpriest
Vsevolod Chaplin, who is officially chairman of the synodal department of the
Moscow Patriarchate and unofficially the mouthpiece for Patriarch Kirill. Last
year, Chaplin produced a kind of manifesto in which he flipped the meaning of
Sermon on the Mount 180 degrees. "We must be able to defend our sacred
places, faith and homeland," Chaplin told Interfax "It does not befit
Orthodox Christians to vie for the title of downcast victim that mass culture
is urging on them. Evil must be fought with force."

Chaplin supported a recent law that made "insulting the
feelings of believers" a felony. In fact, he believed that the punishment
— three years maximum in prison — was "too mild."

During the last presidential campaign, Patriarch Kirill
supported the candidacy of Vladimir Putin. "I must say openly as the
patriarch who is called upon to speak the truth without paying heed to
political trends," Kirill said during a campaign event, "that you
personally, Vladimir Vladimirovich, have played an enormous role in
straightening out the dark twists in our history." Earlier the patriarch
called the relations between the Orthodox church and the state over the last 12
years "a miracle."

It is an axiom in modern society that the church should stand
above the fray of political conflicts. A good example of this is the Catholic
Church in Argentina, which has become a buffer between the militant opposition
and the ruling junta — a mechanism that facilitated the peaceful transition to
democracy in the 1980s.

During tsarist Russia, the Orthodox Church firmly stood on
the side of the authoritarian monarchy, which largely destroyed its moral
authority and alienated the liberal segments of society. In an ironic twist of
fate, this alienation made it easier for the Bolsheviks to quickly destroy the
church after the 1917 Revolution and repress the clergy. It looks like the hierarchy of the modern
Russian Orthodox Church didn't learn a lesson from that tragedy.